I’m not sure I mentioned before, but my mom has been sick. She got COVID and as a result got pneumonia. We thought she had a cold, but she passed out one morning while having breakfast and fell off her chair. At the health center on Paros they checked for broken bones and found pneumonia. So off to Syros we went, to the hospital.

I have bad memories of that place…

Anyway, mom was in isolation there of course, so although I stayed on Syros for days, I was only able to see her from the doorway of the COVID ward now and then for a few minutes. So, in the end I returned to Paros and my grooming work, and my brother and his girlfriend (on holidays from Australia) went to Syros to be close by.

The good news is that mom is coming home today! She still needs oxygen and pills, but she’s finally out of hospital. She’ll stay with me till she’s on her feet.

Meanwhile, I was so frustrated and bored on Syros. Without company and having to hang around close to the hospital, I barely did anything but watch Netflix in the air-conditioned room and walk around town when it wasn’t too hot.

I was yearning to do something when I got back and so I’ve been doing a few odds and ends. First, I’ll share these little fridge magnet experiments.

I bought these wooden objects off Temu and wanted to try different treatments so see what I liked. I tried decoupage of some napkins I had.

I like these, they’re not as shiny now they are totally dry, so they look more vintagey. The blue fish, not so much…

These half round knobby things are kinda cute, but I don’t like the way the napkin didn’t fold well on the sides. Not sure what I’ll do with those. I think these would make great sea urchin magnets.

One thing I was dying to try was this wood burning marker I saw on Temu that I wanted to try.

Of course, I also had to buy this little heat gun, but now I have a small heat gun for other projects.

What you do is draw on the wood with the pen and then apply heat to it and the pen marks will burn the wood.

Eh. It works fine but it’s definitely not for such fine work… the markers are thin but not thin enough for what I had in mind. I could only do basic shapes…

To be honest I’m not sure what I’ll do with most of these little things. I have added super strong neodymium magnets to the back so they will hold just about anything on the fridge. I bought those on Temu too. I might re-work them, paint them… I’m better at painting for sure.

I still much prefer the magnets I made last year – I made the magnets out of air-dry clay, painted them with acrylic paint and sealed them with gloss varnish. Much cuter.

My Temu buying days will be coming to an end soon as I hear that the EU has voted to place high tariffs on things coming from China. It means we’ll still be getting Chinese made things, but at a higher price cause we’ll be buying them from European based businesses who import from China. Bummer.

In a way its good – I’ve become addicted to the site. But it’s so handy for buying craft items, dog items and all kinds of stuff. Of course, there are so many gadgets you can easily fall into that trap (I have…) but if I stick to the art, craft, office and dog stuff (and some tools) that I will actually use, I feel I’m getting good value and will find it hard to give up. Especially for things like the blank timber pieces and other bits and pieces I can use to make other things.

Such is life.

z